


Stars Aligned

by Marsalias



Category: Danny Phantom, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Danny is a Malfoy, Gen, I blame Lynse for this, Twin AU, and also tumblr, because Lucius is a weirdo, given up shortly after birth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28166898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marsalias/pseuds/Marsalias
Summary: 'Danny' doesn't stand for 'Daniel.'  It stands for Deneb.  As in, Deneb Alased Fenton.  But as he discovers, his last name wasn't always Fenton, and he REALLY wants to get his twin away from his weird, racist, biological parents.
Comments: 121
Kudos: 597





	1. Chapter 1

Here’s the thing. Danny _had_ encountered wizards before. And witches. Multiple times. 

He was not a fan. 

_Burning,_ or other forms of murder, hadn’t ever crossed his mind as a solution to them, even when Freakshow decided to derail his life _yet again._ Still. There were only so many times you could stumble upon members of a certain group zapping people with bargain-bin neuralyzers and leaving hours’ worth of uncertain memories in their wake before you got sort of fed up. 

Memory erasure was great in fiction. Not so much in real life. 

Danny got it. He’d erased a couple of memories himself. Well, a lot of memories, depending on how one took the Reality Gauntlet incident. But as far as motivations went, ‘trying not to be dissected by the government’ was a lot different from ‘we can’t be bothered to be discreet about our sporting events and we think it’s funny that our venue managed to attract ghost hunters when these magicless fools have never seen a _real_ ghost in their lives so we’re going to mess with them.’ 

Yeah. Danny was still annoyed about that. Also, about their reactions to him when he crossed an invisible line that was apparently supposed to repulse ‘no-majs.’ 

That was before getting into Desiree, one of the few witches to become a _proper_ ghost. According to her, witches and wizards had a different system, and it was rare for magic users to enter the Infinite Realms. Dora’s dragon amulet had also been enchanted prior to her death, although that could have been a ghost’s work, and Dora had never shared where it had come from. 

Anyway, the point was that Danny knew about magic as an entity separate from ghost powers and at least a small subset of the living beings that relied upon it. 

So, when the woman who dressed like she was living a century ago and smelled of magic walked up to his house, he’d braced himself for a fight. He wasn’t going to let his parents be ‘obliviated’ again. They were oblivious enough as it was!

But. No. She’d come in, no wand in sight (although Danny still wasn’t entirely sure those were necessary) and sat down on the couch, hands primly folded, ignoring all of the… rather questionable features of the Fenton living room. 

To add to the weirdness, his parents had been _expecting_ her. They knew her by name. They wanted Danny to be in the room to meet her. 

“Edna,” Jack said, with a strained smile. “How have you been?”

“Well enough,” said Edna, her eyes flicking to where Danny stood in the kitchen door, watching. “And this must be young Deneb Alased, correct?”

“Yeah,” said Danny, frowning. There weren’t a whole lot of people who knew his legal name, let alone his middle name. So, who was this? “I am.” He looked at his parents, willing them to clear up whatever this was. 

Both of their faces were sour, but they were trying to hide it. Maddie was doing better than Jack. 

“This is Edna,” said Maddie. “Why don’t you come and sit down, Danny?” She patted the back of Jack’s favorite recliner.

Danny noticed how Edna’s mouth twitched down at his nickname. His fingers curled, ghost energy buzzing under his skin just barely kept from his eyes. He didn’t like this. 

“It’s alright,” said Edna, smiling kindly. “This must be very confusing for you. I would be concerned myself, under these circumstances. What I’m about to tell you may be difficult to process, however.”

“We’d like to start it off, actually,” said Maddie. “When you called this morning—” She broke off, making a face. “We were told this wouldn’t happen.”

“Yes, well,” said Edna. She shrugged. “Purebloods. What can you do? Evidently—Well. You should have your say, first.”

Danny gave Edna another suspicious glance. Maybe all wizards weren’t bad. Maybe Freakshow was an outlier and sports fans just sucked in general.

Yeah, honestly, that tracked. (Cough, Vlad, cough, Dash, cough.)

He sat down. “Okay,” he said. “Way to be ominous. What’s going on?”

“Well, Danno,” said Jack. He laughed nervously.

“You’re adopted,” said Maddie, bluntly.

Danny blinked. “Wait, what?” he said. “ _Adopted_? But I look just like you guys!”

Jack’s nervous chuckles continued. “We _are_ related to your birth parents… not closely, but… Yes.”

“Oh my gosh,” said Danny, feeling several layers of personal identity float away from him. He’d always blamed his weirdness on genetics and family history. _Especially_ the ghost stuff. Then again, his name, which definitely did not match with his parents’ or sister’s, probably should have tipped him off. “You’re serious?”

“I’m afraid so, Danny,” said Jack, kneeling by the chair and patting his knee. “But don’t worry! You’ll always be a Fenton, no matter what!”

Danny nodded, swallowing back emotion. “And Jazz? Is she…?”

“She’s adopted, too. At about the same time as you, in fact,” said Maddie. “So am I and Alicia. It’s a long story.”

“Okay,” said Danny, determined to get that story at some point. “Why is she here, then?”

“I was involved in your adoption,” she explained, “and certain members of your birth family want to get back in contact with you.” 

_Ancients,_ that was sure a thing to hit a guy with right after the ‘you’re adopted’ revelation. 

Hold up. He was forgetting something. This was a witch. How did that play into this? Because it had to. Witches and wizards, as far as Danny could tell, tended to isolate themselves from the rest of humanity. 

He decided he did not like the probable trajectory of this conversation. 

“Why?” he asked, because he wasn’t going to say he knew about magic until and unless someone else cracked first. 

“Yes,” said Maddie. “Why? Why now? We were under the impression that they would never contact us.”

“Evidently,” said Edna, “Deneb’s birth mother was not properly informed of the decision to put him up for adoption.”

Okay. Yeah. That was a lead-in to his biological parents being magical because he couldn’t think of a single modern western country where that would fly. 

“So, what? I was kidnapped at birth or something?” asked Danny.

“Not exactly,” said Edna, wincing. “It was your birth father who filed the paperwork.”

“And she’s only now wondering where Danny is?” asked Maddie, a little shrilly. Her stress from before was now spilling over into anger so sharp Danny could taste it like a knife on his tongue. “Did she somehow manage to forget giving birth?”

“No,” said Edna. “Which brings us to the other matter. One of the other matters. The one who first sent the request for your adoption information was actually your twin brother.”

A _third_ monumental revelation. Wonderful. What next?

“We, of course, contacted his parents, and discovered the irregularity regarding your birth mother’s consent. Hence my presence here today.” She opened her bag and removed a small glass tube, about twice the length of Danny’s palm and the same diameter as a quarter. “There was also the issue regarding how _young_ you were when you were put up for adoption. Generally, our agency deals with the placement of children aged from five to eleven.” She held the tube out to Danny. “Could you hold this, please?”

“Do you really need to do this?” asked Jack. 

“Due to all the irregularities involved, yes,” said Edna. “Our organization charter unfortunately requires it. If the mother was not consulted, as is required, the reasoning is that other required things are not as certain.”

“Hold up,” said Danny, hands tightening around the ends of the armrests. “These people—” Who were most probably wizards, and wasn’t that a thing to get his head around, “—they’re not trying to get custody of me again, are they? After giving me away?”

“No,” said Maddie. “We won’t let that happen.”

“We’re not going to give him back to people who were going to abandon him just because—!” Dad broke off. “Uh. Because.”

Smooth. 

“You know,” said Danny, deciding to cut off… whatever this was. “Even if this ‘test’ is, like…” He trailed off. “Whatever result you want it to be. I don’t know. I’m still going to find out whatever it is you’re dancing around anyway. Because I’m not going to forget this conversation.”

Silence. 

The witch twitched slightly towards where Danny knew her wand was hidden. 

Screw it. “And I’m not going to let you erase my memory. You people _do_ get how messed up that is, right?”

Danny was treated to the sound and sight of three jaws dropping open. 

“How do you-?” started Maddie. 

“You remember when we went to that camp because people thought it was haunted? But you didn’t find anything? Well, they managed to get both of you that time, but not me. And I _know_ you’re one of them, so I’m betting that whatever this is, it has to do with magic.” He paused. “It was some weird magic sporting event, apparently.”

“The-? You went to the _Quidditch World Cup?_ ” asked Edna.

“What? No!” protested Maddie. “That was in Britain, wasn’t it? We were just in the next state.” She scowled. “I’m going to write a letter of complaint. Even if we’re living without magic, we’re not no-majs. We’re squibs. They had no right to obliviate us.”

“Okay,” said Danny. “Yeah. You’ve lost me. Squibs?”

No one seemed willing to answer the question. 

“If you’d just take this,” said Edna, holding out the tube a little desperately. “It will be much easier to explain all at once.”

Danny looked up at his parents. Jack looked at Maddie. Maddie drummed her fingers on the back of his chair. 

“It’ll be fine,” said Maddie, “probably.”

“Fine,” said Danny. He took the tube. Almost at once, it started glowing green. 

“Oh,” said Edna, frowning and leaning closer. “It usually isn’t—”

The tube exploded, embedding several small glass shards in Danny’s hands. 

“Ow,” said Danny. 

“Oh,” said Edna again, evidently not registering the small splinter of glass in her cheek. “Well. Whoever your birth father hired to test your magic as an infant obviously got it wrong. Congratulations, Mr. Fenton. You’re a wizard.”

“My hand is bleeding.”

“Yes,” agreed Edna. “It isn’t supposed to explode, you see.”

.

Once Danny got cleaned up, which involved a lot of glaring at Edna from Maddie and Jack, they adjourned to the kitchen, which was free of random glass shards. 

“The adoption organization I work for,” said Edna, “places squibs—people born to magical parents who do not have magic themselves—with families of squibs. Assuming the child’s birth parents do want to give up their child over something like not having magic.” Her nose wrinkled. “The common wisdom is that it is easier for such children to grow up in an environment that is not explicitly magical. In any case, it is my personal belief that anyone who would give up a child over something like that isn’t going to be the best of parents.”

“Alright,” said Danny, “so… all of us are squibs.”

“Except you, apparently,” said Edna. “It’s hard to tell whether or not someone as young as you were when you were given up will be magical or not. Which is why we usually only deal with older children. I don’t suppose you’ve noticed anything odd happening around yourself? Or unusual abilities?”

Danny stared at her flatly for several long moments. His entire life could be classified as ‘odd,’ and most of it he wasn’t about to share with Edna. Or his parents, as much as he loved them.

 _But,_ on the other hand, he now had a great excuse for at least some of his weirdness. His parents wouldn’t think _ghost_ if they could think _wizard_ first.

“Like, define ‘odd,’” said Danny. Despite his earlier encounters with wizards, he had no idea what was normal for them. Other than memory wiping. Which he could not do and wouldn’t have demonstrated anyway. 

Okay. If was actually a wizard, and Edna’s doohickey wasn’t just reacting to his ghostliness, he probably could _learn_ how to do the memory thing, but he didn’t know _now,_ so the distinction was meaningless. 

(Maybe being a wizard or a squib or whatever was why he wasn’t just. Dead.)

(Yeah, he didn’t want to think about that.)

“Just… Being in one place, and then a different place. Surviving something you shouldn’t have been able to unscathed. Things moving by themselves or changing color or size. Temperature changes. Something you want very badly happening, even if it is impossible or extremely unlikely.”

“Okay,” said Danny. “Yeah.”

“To which one?” asked Jack, concerned. “I haven’t noticed anything like that except what the ghosts do.”

“Um,” said Danny. “This?” He put his hand down on the table, intending to leave an icy handprint. That should be acceptable, right? If temperature changes were normal…

His nerves got the best of him. He knew he was nervous showing even one of his powers around his parents. He overcompensated. 

The table was covered with frost. 

“Oops?” said Danny. 

All the blood had left Edna’s face. Jack and Maddie didn’t look much better. 

“Dear lord,” said Edna. “You can do that at will?”

“Yes,” said Danny, holding his hand close to his chest. “More or less.”

“Danny,” said Jack, “why didn’t you tell us?”

“I thought you’d think it was a ghost thing. You kind of shoot first and ask questions later about ghost things.”

“Oh my _god,_ ” said Edna. “Never mind that. You can do wandless magic and you’re _fourteen?_ ”

“Fifteen,” said Danny, “but, yeah. I guess.”

Evidently, this wasn’t normal. 

Also, his comment about shooting first hurt his parents’ feelings. Go figure. Not like _they_ weren’t keeping a massive secret. 

.

“So,” said Danny, once the other discussions had been shelved for the time being, “I have a brother? I think a brother was, at some point, mentioned.”

“Yes,” said Edna. “A twin brother. He wants to meet you. Along with your biological mother.”

“And if _I_ don’t want to?” asked Danny. “If I don’t want to have anything to do with them?”

“I don’t even know,” said Edna. “I can’t believe you slipped under the national detection spell. There’s going to be so much paperwork involved in this. International paperwork.”

“Huh?”

“You were born in Britain,” said Edna, as if this were a minor detail. 

Yeah. Like his sense of self needed any further pummeling. 

“But it isn’t _our_ fault everything is so messed up,” said Danny. He _maybe_ had some curiosity about his twin brother, but if there was any risk he’d be taken away…

“I understand,” said Edna, “but nothing like this has come up before, as far as we know.” She sighed. “If it makes you feel better, I will use any influence I have in the matter to recommend that you retain custody of Deneb. In the meantime… _Do_ you want to, uh, open communications with any members of your biological family?”

“I don’t know,” said Danny. “Can I think about it?”

.

Relations in the Malfoy household had been strained ever since Draco’s investigation of his family tree (unrelated to the return of the Dark Lord and how blood purity was now much, much more important) had revealed that his twin brother had not, in fact, died at birth. 

And by _strained,_ Draco meant that his parents had taken to living on opposite sides of the manor, interacting only when there were visitors. Visitors such as his father’s Death Eater friends, members of society, and various government officials. All of whom were more alike, and had greater overlap, than even Draco had initially suspected. 

This left Draco walking on eggshells between the two of them and wishing for Hogwarts to start again. Anything he did to please one had to be entirely out of sight of the other, or else they began to fight again. Truthfully, Draco was more on his mother’s side, all things considered, but his father was the one with the friends, and Draco couldn’t stay home under his mother’s wings for all his life. Like his dragon namesake, he had to _fly._

Which he would most certainly do. Soon. No, he wasn’t hiding from his parents in his room. That would be ridiculous. They knew where his room was. They could find him if they wanted to, and neither of them was anywhere near him. He knew. He’d checked.

This made the inarticulate shriek of rage he overheard from his mother all the more concerning. 

It was enough to make him emerge – cautiously! – from his self-imposed exile. 

He was curious. And stupid. It got him into enough trouble at school, why not at home?

Also, he really needed to know. For his own safety. Tiptoeing around whatever disaster just happened would be impossible if he didn’t know what it _was._

Instead, he tiptoed after his mother. 

His mother, who was angry enough that sparks were coming off the end of her tightly gripped wand. _Green_ sparks. 

Draco had never actually seen the killing curse in action, but his mother’s face screamed murder all on its own, no magic required, despite the fact that Draco was only catching glimpses of it as she strode towards his father’s half of the house. 

This was going to be bad. Terrible. Possibly the kind of event that saw one of his parents in Azkaban and the other in little, tiny pieces all around the smoking room. 

Lucius, for his part, looked paralyzed where he stood, and Draco briefly entertained the notion that Narcissa had managed to cast _petrificus totalis_ on him without moving her wand or speaking the words.

Narcissa planted herself firmly in front of Lucius and glared up at him, seething, her breath making sucking noises as it passed through her teeth. 

She punched Lucius in the face. The man toppled, clutching his nose. Narcissa kicked him.

It was a good thing that the Malfoys had no neighbors, because what Narcissa screamed next likely could have been heard for at least a mile. 

_“He wasn’t even a squib, you lying bastard!”_


	2. Chapter 2

Here’s the thing. Danny _knew_ this was a dumb decision. At least as dumb as stepping into the ghost portal (but at least he’d gotten some nifty powers out of that, hey?). Whatever reason his bio-dad had for chucking him out the door within days of his birth couldn’t be good. Putting himself within reach of the man… Yeah. Not his brightest thought. 

(Not to mention the wizards. And witches. That was so weird, how they had two different names for essentially the same thing. Then again… actor, actress… Why were people so weird?)

On the other hand, _twin brother._ Twin brother who had to live with aforementioned baby-abandoning bio-dad. Twin brother who wasn’t allowed to visit America. Or, Danny suspected, a family of squibs. 

Yeah. 

_Yeah._

So, here he was. Getting everything in order for a wizard passport and wizard international travel, because bio-family refused to even look at an airport. 

Danny had a suspicion that, based on how they spelled the word and a few other comments in that particular letter, that they weren’t entirely clear on what an airport _was._

Fun. 

On the other hand, in comparison to the actual, normal, _legal_ passport he’d gotten, just in case bio-family left him somewhere, wizard passports were much, much easier to get. The wait times were practically nonexistent. He could, in theory, get the passport on the same day he traveled. All that was needed was proof he was a wizard and his adoption papers. 

Of course, ‘proof he was a wizard’ actually meant ‘wand.’ Wands being something they used as personal ID, despite the fact that they were a) sticks, and b) didn’t actually carry any personally identifiable information. Sure, Jack said that they were somehow connected to their owners, but unless there were, like, giant books of details about everyone’s wands at every place that would, conceivably, need ID, and had people trained to identify all those tiny little characteristics… Danny just couldn’t see how it would work.

Danny’s current theory was that all wizards were just insane, which meant that his twin would most likely fit right in with the rest of Danny’s family, right as soon as Danny figured out how to legally kidnap him.

(No, Danny didn’t have a ghostly Obsession, and it definitely wasn’t family related. He was only half-ghost, after all. Why do you ask?)

Anyway. Wizard passport. Wizard ID. Wizard sticks. 

Wands. 

Wands meant a nerve-wracking trip to the nearest wizarding town with Jack. Evidently, he’d lived there a couple of years after his parents sent him away from Britain when he was around fourteen because of ‘the war.’

Abruptly, many of Jack’s stories about his childhood made more sense.

(It had always been something of a joke between Jazz and Danny to try and figure out what ‘the war’ was supposed to be, and if Jack’s parents had just… Conned him into thinking he’d eaten horse meat. For some reason. Even if the Fentons hadn’t seemed like that kind of people, no matter how eccentric.)

(Also, evidently Jazz and Danny had never met Jack’s biological parents, who were _not_ named Fenton, although his adopted mother was also a witch.)

(Why was everything so complicated?)

The “wizarding community” was a small town accessible only by a train line invisible to ‘no-majs.’ And also flying brooms. Which wizards used. Danny had seen the train before, not realizing that he wasn’t supposed to. Several times. Usually while flying to Wisconsin to deal with whatever Vlad had done that week. 

If Danny was a wizard, was _Vlad?_ Was being half-ghost somehow tied up in being magical? What did that mean for Dani?

(Hey, maybe this whole affair could be used to bring Dani into the family safely. Who was to say that he didn’t have a secret twin sister?)

Danny could admit that the town itself, which had almost a Ghost Zone vibe with how all the architecture seemed to be from fifty plus to a hundred years ago and also the physics breaking magic, was sort of cool. It was… cute, he guessed. He didn’t really like how everyone was staring at Jack, their clothes were just as weird, but it wasn’t a new thing. People always stared at Jack. 

That’s what happened when you wore hazard-orange jumpsuits twenty-four seven. 

The shops all had names out of a fantasy novel, and at one point they got turned around and wound up on a residential street where they had to ask for directions, but eventually they made it to ‘Willoughby’s Wand Emporium.’

The interior of Willoughby’s Wand Emporium reminded Danny strongly of a shoe store. The shelves were all lined with boxes of approximately that size, and the employees all carried measuring tape. It also smelled like a shoe store: musty and dry, with a hint of polish. Or maybe it was wood varnish? Or some kind of paint. 

A young woman bounced up. “Hi, how can we help you today? Replacement wand?”

“First time, actually,” said Jack. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said the woman. “You’re just so tall for your age.”

“I’m fourteen,” said Danny. 

The woman began to turn red.

“He was missed,” said Jack. “It happens.” He smiled, but it looked far more strained than usual. 

“Oh,” said the woman. “Ahem. Well, if you’ll come right this way, I can start taking measurements, and start trying out wands. The wand chooses the wizard, they say!”

“Okay,” said Danny, shrugging. That was… interesting. Were the wands sentient? Did that somehow make them acceptable IDs?

Seemed really weird to keep sentient things stored in boxes.

… Said the kid who stored sentient beings in a soup thermos. 

A _really high-tech soup thermos._

Didn’t make it better. 

Except he didn’t keep them in the thermos indefinitely. Except for Dan. 

Danny didn’t know if the wizards kept the wands in boxes indefinitely, either. Maybe he should stop assuming things. That had gotten him in trouble with ghosts more than once.

The woman took her measuring tape from where it hung around her shoulders, held it out in front of herself, and promptly dropped it. It did not fall. 

As basic as levitation was for ghosts, it was _really weird_ to see a human do it. (Especially when it always took so much concentration for him to levitate things other than himself—Hence why he never really used the ability in battle.)

The measuring tape flitted around Danny’s head, shoulders, arms, and body, taking measurements. He had to sit on his reflexes _hard_ to prevent himself from trying to catch it or knock it out of the air. 

He was so nervous. Was it normal to be nervous?

The measuring tape snaked back through the air to the woman, who smiled. “Alright,” she said, “we can start with that. Uh, to explain the process, we usually start out with wands in the appropriate size range and try and zero in on the ones that respond best to you from there.” She flicked her own wand, and several thin boxes slid themselves off the shelves. “We use a wide variety of wand woods from a variety of wandmakers. Just about any tree that grows in North America is probably represented here.” She paused. “Except for palm trees.”

“That makes sense,” said Danny. Palm trees were quite different from other trees. 

“Alright. Let’s start with pine. The core of this one is dragon heartstring—Harvested humanely, of course!”

“Core?” said Danny, latching on to the familiar word even as he regarded the wand itself dubiously. 

“Yes. As with our woods, we also stock a wide range of wand cores. Each wand has a core made of a small part of a magical creature. Dragon heartstring, unicorn hair, and phoenix feather are the standard ones… But that standardization _is_ rather British. We have a few others available. Thunderbird tail feather—Only taken during molt. Wampus cat hair. Dittany. Rougarou hair. Jackalope antler… Those are the more common ones, though we do have others. Even some kneazle whisker, although most people don’t want those.”

“Why not?”

“Ah, they tend not to be very strong. But sheer power isn’t everything. Some prefer control, need lower power output… or are worried about accidents while they’re learning. We do see some adult learners every now and then.”

That actually sounded sort of appealing to Danny, but he supposed he’d better go about this normally. At least at first. 

He picked up the pine wand and immediately dropped it. 

“Ow,” he said. 

“Ow?” repeated the woman. “Oh,” she said, catching sight of the burn on his hand. “That’s… not supposed to happen.”

“Y’know,” said Danny, conversationally, “I’ve only held, like, two magical things in my life, and both of them have damaged my hands. Is this, like, a common thing, or am I just ridiculously unlucky.”

“Second one, I think,” said the woman. “Cynthia’s good at minor healing charms. I’m going to go get her. Okay? Okay.”

Shortly thereafter, phoenix feather wands were also eliminated as a possibility, not because they burned Danny, but because they seemed intent on burning everything else around him. Pine wands were also a definite no-go (“Don’t worry about the lifespan thing,” said the woman, “that’s a myth.”). As was everything but elder, apple, pear, hornbeam, thorn, and yew (this list got another mention of myths from the shop assistant). 

At this point, the shop owner, Mrs. Willoughby, was drawn out from the back room to observe the mess Danny was making. 

“My,” she said, “I haven’t seen anyone have this much trouble in a while. Heather, why don’t you go get some of the specialty cores.”

“I thought the unicorn was working well,” protested the woman who’d been helping Danny so far. She winced as Danny picked up a new wand and exploded a light. “Comparatively.”

“Yes, we could probably eventually find a unicorn hair wand that would work for him, but all things considered… I feel like we should explore other avenues.” She sniffed. “Nothing associated with fire. Perhaps kelpie mane?”

“I’ll check,” said Heather. 

.

Kelpie mane, it turned out, did the same sort of thing as phoenix tail feather when it came to Danny. Only with a lot more water involved. 

“I didn’t think that would work, anyway,” said Mrs. Willoughby. 

“Then why,” said Danny, wringing water out of his shirt, “did you have me try it?”

“Oh, cases like you greatly improve our understanding of wandlore,” said Mrs. Willoughby. “You’re not likely to have noticed this yet, but the population of wizards and witches is so small compared to the no-maj population that everyone who gets very far in a profession has to be a bit of an innovator. I’m recording this for future reference, and I’ll be looking forward to seeing what you do in life. If anything. It would be very helpful to me if you became famous.”

“Hard pass on that,” said Danny. 

“Or at least come back at some point.”

“I’ll consider it,” said Danny. “But, like, we were really hoping to do other things today, so maybe…” He made a circular motion with his hand. “Or at least, ugh, I don’t know. I feel like everything you give me is trying to kill me.”

It was a very familiar feeling, and a very unwelcome one, nonetheless. 

“We really aren’t,” said Mrs. Willoughby. “But perhaps… from now on, we’ll limit to the woods to the Rosaceaes. The others tend to be called unlucky. Well, except for the hornbeam. Is there anything you’re singularly passionate about?”

 _Singularly_ passionate? “Not really,” said Danny, who did not think about ghosts or helping people or space. He shifted, uncomfortable, and squelched. 

Screw it. He was supposedly a wizard, now, right?

He phased the water off himself. 

“Oh my god!” shouted Heather. “Did you do that on _purpose_?”

“Uh,” said Danny. “No?”

“Calm down, Heather. Don’t act like you’ve never seen accidental magic before.”

“Not with a teenager doing it!”

They were now attracting a crowd. Yay. 

“He’s not trained, yet,” said Mrs. Willoughby, unconcerned. “Don’t be rude.”

“Yeah, can we get back on track, here?”

After a few more tries, Mrs. Willoughby had determined that the wood that reacted the _least_ badly to Danny was hawthorn. Then she sent Heather into the storage room to fetch more. 

“I don’t know why we even have these,” said Heather, under her breath, carrying several boxes marked with stamps that read ‘THESTRAL.’

“Because some people have trauma, Heather.”

“He’s a teenager. I seriously doubt he has deep personal experiences with death.”

“Wow, way to assume, Heather,” said another shop assistant, who was passing by with a far-too-curious customer. 

“Here,” said Mrs. Willoughby, handing Danny a box. “Try this one. It’s hawthorn.”

With some suspicion, Danny slid the cover off the box and gingerly picked up the wand inside. 

It didn’t do anything like what the other wands had. Instead, the slender length of wood gave him a faint echo of the feeling he got when he was on an emotional high and engaging in either extreme mischief or obsession-adjacent activities (because he did _not_ have a _real, ghostly, capital-O_ Obsession).

Danny declined to hold it with all five fingers, lest he be overcome with mania.

Yes, he was paranoid. But when touching things can go as badly for you as they did for Danny, paranoia was justified. 

“Oh, it looks like you’ve found your match,” said Mrs. Willoughby, clapping. 

With the ease of practice, Danny did not let any trace of horror or unease show on his face. He ignored the surge of glee from the wand, and carefully placed it back in the box. 

Yeah. He needed a wand for passport purposes, but there was no way he was going to use that. He’d just fake magic with ghost powers. It had been working out okay so far. 

What was the worst that could happen?

A rather relieved Jack paid for the wand, and they made their way, slowly, to the government building. 

“So,” said Jack. “You want to save getting those beginner magic manuals for another day?”

“Absolutely,” said Danny. He wondered if his twin had gone through anything even remotely like this and if it was really worth all this trouble to meet a person he would have basically nothing in common with other than blood. 

Blood that likely meant less than usual, considering that _his_ was diluted with ectoplasm. A fact he would have to hide. With no allies or back up. In England. 

(Again, this whole endeavor was not his greatest idea.)

.

Draco supervised the house-elves as they cleaned out the room next to his own, feeling rather blank. He had campaigned vigorously for his twin to come, but now that he _was…_

The boy, for all that he was as much a Malfoy as Draco, was an American for all intents and purposes. What did Americans even like? What did they call their bastardized version of Quidditch? Would Deneb even _know_ about wizard games? According to the woman from the agency, he’d been raised as a muggle by those squibs he’d been placed with. 

Slowly but surely, Draco’s heart sank. He had _no idea_ what his twin would be like. Deneb, despite being his brother, would essentially be a stranger. 

He was beginning to understand why his mother was so angry at his father. 


End file.
